Windows 8.1 is here and has come up with a few changes. One of the most notable changes is the return of the Start button in Windows 8.1. Although this is mainly due to outcries made by PC users about the missing start button, yet the new Start button is nowhere near the Start button found in Windows 7, neither in looks nor in functionality. If you want to get rid of this Start button, then you can use the free StartIsGone utility.
You can download StartIsGone tool from the WinAero software website. The download is available as a portable application packed inside a ZIP archive. After downloading the ZIP file, extract its contents to a folder and you would find two sub-folders – x86 which contains application for the 32-bit Windows and x64 which has the program for x64 bit Windows. If you are not sure, try running x64 version, if it fails then you can run x86 version. Upon running the appropriate version of StartIsGone, it would immediately hide the Start button in Windows.
It also places an icon in the notification area of the taskbar. Through this notification area icon, you can configure StartIsGone to automatically start with Windows so that it can hide the Start button as soon as you logon to Windows. It also has an option to hide the taskbar, but hiding the taskbar is not very useful for most of the users.
So if you want to get rid of the almost useless Start button in Windows 8.1, then you can make use of the freeware tool StartIsGone. It can also hide the taskbar, if you do not like the taskbar either. You may want to consider using the Classic Shell Start Menu replacement as it offers a Start Menu in Windows 8, which is much more like the Start menu in Windows 7 or Vista.
You can download WinAero StartIsGone from http://winaero.com/download.php?view.63.